October 29, 2012

Made On Planet Earth

I’m
proud to say that at Levenger, we source our products in America—and from all
over the globe, including China. We pride ourselves at finding the best-quality
manufacturers of our goods no matter where they may be, with the same blind
justice as the Olympics: let the best competitor win. We feel a deep obligation
to make the best Levenger products we can—in quality, sustainability, and
price—and pass that value to our customers.

I
also believe that, in general, the more nations trade, the less they fight.
It’s bad business to kill customers.

Of
course, exceptions have been made. Nations have gone to war against countries
they trade with. Citizens have punished neighbors who provide valuable economic
services. Yet by and large, nations and citizens behave in their economic
interests. This is one reason why capitalism can be such a powerful force for
good.

We
source most of our leather goods in China because the Chinese make most of the
world’s best leather goods. I’ve toured numerous Chinese leather factories and
can assure you that many of the bags sold on Via Spiga, Bond Street, Madison
Avenue and Rodeo Drive begin their careers in China. And this is a good thing.

The
Chinese for decades have invested in the leather industry for both low-end and
high-end goods. They have trained a vast labor pool of skilled workers required
for the labor-intensive work that fine leather goods require. Owners and
workers have benefited. In the twenty years I’ve been traveling to China, I’ve
seen the parking lots jammed full of bicycles transform into lots full of motor
scooters and cars. I’ve seen their factories add amenities (including libraries
and computer learning centers) as they compete for skilled employees. I’ve seen
the employees gain weight, which perhaps isn’t healthy for them, but
nevertheless marks their improving wealth.

In
the early years, we stayed at Spartan factory dorms. These days, factory owners
drive us with pride to luxury Hyatt Hotels, where Audis and Land Rovers owned
by Chinese executives are parked outside.

The
Chinese have the infrastructure (tanneries, equipment suppliers, hardware) to
support the quick sampling and rapid scaling of production that our fast-paced
world demands.

I’m
all for more highly skilled jobs in America that require education, creativity
and hard work—all things that Americans are eminently capable of. American business executives
have to play to our strengths, including innovation, entrepreneurism, and an
understanding that doing the right thing can be profitable. A growing number of
major firms are embracing this latter philosophy, which is one of the
cornerstones of Conscious Capitalism.

But let’s not kid ourselves that protectionist
trade policies will have any long-term beneficial effect for us or for our
trading partners. Isolation breeds alienation. The world is too small to be alone
in anymore. We’ll excel as a nation as we always have—the old-fashioned way, with
our smarts and hard work.

I’m
seeing promising things.

Our
American leather partner in western Massachusetts has more automation than most
Chinese factories—for example, automated folding machines that yield higher-quality
products faster.

Our
American printing partner in Maine links to us with a network of computers so
that the moment you press the order button on Levenger.com, a digital printing
press in Maine begins to make your custom creation. Then, through plain New
England hustle, the sons and daughters of Maine fishermen pack and ship those
orders the same day they are produced.

For
a wonderful historical perspective on trade, I recommend The Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William J.
Bernstein. I quote from his summary:

World trade
has yielded not only a bounty of material goods, but also of intellectual and
cultural capital, an understanding of our neighbors, and a desire to sell
things to others rather than annihilate them.

For an uplifting look at the general
decline in world violence and the contributing role of capitalism, I highly
recommend Steven Pinker’s meticulously researched and beautifully written The
Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.

And
now, come take an around-the-world trip to the origins of Levenger products. I’ve
asked Levenger Press editor Mim Harrison to act as our tour guide:

Wicked good
leather goods from Massachusetts. Pick up some of our embossed
leatherware and know
that while the leather comes from Italy, the crafting of it is done in the Bay
State.

London,
France, China and the world…by way of Wisconsin.Levenger
Press may be the only
publisher in America to have a book on
China that was printed in America. We’re proud to say that nearly all Levenger Press
books are printed by Worzalla, an employee-owned Master Printer in Wisconsin.

Our newest book with Worzalla, Seeing the
World Anew, tells the
story of a 16th-century mapmaker from France who created two world
maps that signaled a radically new world view.

For the book’s presentation at
the Library of Congress National Book Festival in September, Rodger Beyer from
Worzalla joined Levenger in cheering on the authors.

And
Dickens may have penned his Christmas
Carol in London, but the only true
facsimile of his furiously scrawled pages was printed in America.

Mandarin from
Michigan.
We recently designed a set of Multilingual Learning Blocks that feature words in six different languages, including Mandarin.
A
family-owned company in Michigan hand-manufactured the blocks from
replenishable local basswood. We worked with another U.S. organization, the Long
Now Foundation,
in selecting the languages and the words.

Microbrew from
Jersey. That
would be our microbrewed Levenger Bottled Ink, and the secret recipe is known
to only a few at a secret plant in New Jersey.

Well-dotted
i’s from Iowa.
If you’ve written with a flourish with our Signature Stub Nib, you’ve gotten a feel for Iowa craftsmanship.
That’s where the nibs are ground—by hand, by a master.

Mile-high
Churchill.
An original painting by Sir Winston Churchill goes for sky-high prices. Come to
Levenger and you can get a laser-cut wooden puzzle featuring one of the few paintings to feature his initials. It’s crafted by a
precision puzzler in Colorado.

Barristers
heart New York.
They are the real deal: the barrister bookcases with the glass fronts that you
pull out and slide back in the best Atticus Finch tradition. Levenger Barrister
Bookcases
are manufactured in the best small-town-America tradition, in Herkimer, New
York, by a company that’s been making them for more than a century.

Byron does the
Big Easy. Our
Shirt Pocket Poetry is pouched and packaged in New Orleans. And the cards? They’ve made in Memphis,
the same city where you’ll find our customer service center. (Steve is partial
to the fried pickles there.)

Amish country. From Indiana
comes the Book Snug desk-size book holder that Amish craftsmen there make for us. As is their
custom, they do not wish to have their faces photographed. But they did allow
us to show you some photos of their hand work, which you can see on the link.

Americas the
beautiful.
From Argentina comes some of the leather we use; from Chile, some of the pulp
for the paper our Taiwanese manufacturer makes. From Haiti come iPad sleeves hand-quilted by women under the wing of an American humanitarian group, whom
we hooked up with by way of Martha’s Vineyard. Indeed, it is a small world
after all.

Oh, to be from
England.
That’s where all our Tusting leather bagsare from.
They’re made in the True Brit tradition of a small, family-run manufactory
that’s been turning out quality for generations. England is also where our Bodleian
Bilingual Bags for books comes from, and you can’t get much more British than that.

Do the
Continental.
The paper in the Rhodia notebooks
we offer comes from France. (The notebooks are actually printed and bound in
Buffalo, New York.) From the land of IKEA come Whitelines, the
notebooks from Sweden. We look to Germany for our pen nibs and Italy for both
pens and some leather. And like Marco Polo, we look farther East for additional
craftsmanship.

Silk Road,
Levenger-style.
Our Thai Pad is
handmade in Thailand from silk. From artisans in India come the India Cloud
Kantha Book Pillow. From Korea comes leather; Malaysia, paper; Japan, the resin for our Kyoto
pen.
And In Taiwan
and mainland China we work with artisans, entrepreneurs and factories to
produce a number of our paper and leather products, as well as deskware.

If
Levenger had a manufacturing map app, you’d find us—well, all over the map. But
only where there are people with a like-minded passion for quality. That makes
it a small world after all.

And
now to you, dear reader: have you bought something recently based on where it
was made? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below
with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll
connect to Comments).

Thank you for your thoughtful and well supported essay. I think a key reason so many Americans have negative feelings about products made overseas is that too often American executives have been missing one of the things on your list of American strengths: "an understanding that doing the right thing can be profitable." These executives have taken work overseas not to get quality goods but to increase profit for themselves, far beyond what any rational person needs to live. Merely "profitable" is not enough for them. Their concept of "doing the right thing" has nothing to do with the thousands of workers they employ(ed) and everything to do with satisfying their own greed by paying overseas workers the pittance their situation makes them accept. And the executives will dump those workers just as soon as they can find some in more desperate straits. I am happy to support companies that see themselves as a community and as part of communities. I resist supporting companies that see employees and consumers as slaves to be used for maximum profit for "owners."

I was hoping you'd comment on your Carezza leather products. Do I remember correctly, that the leather is made by a family in Japan that has been tanning leather for 150 years? Are the products themselves then made in Japan or is the leather sent elsewhere for final manufacture?

Thank you all for your kind words and comments. I agree, Margery. And Jason Z, you do remember right that the Carezza leather originally came from an old Japanese tannery and was assembled in China. Unfortunately, that supply is no longer available, so we have switched to American hides, which are tanned in South Korea and assembled in China. While there are almost no tanneries left in the U.S., we still produce much of the leather, as it is a byproduct of the food industry. We export the leather as "wet blues" to tanneries around the world.
Thanks again for your business and your interest.
All best,
Steve